Blog

By modefor, Sep 10 2018 06:18AM

On Saturday the 25th of August we celebrated the wedding of our wonderful couple, Ruth and Chris.

The industrial setting of The Arches, once again saw an incredible transformation with creative styling, stunning floral displays and of course lots of individual and personal touches carefully selected by our lovely bride and groom.

The styling on the day focussed on striking rose gold metallics complimented by the delicate hues of dusky pink and violet blooms which added a dash of glam to the venue's industrial stone work. A lush green foilage wall provided a stunning back drop for the wedding ceremony itself and pretty candle lit lanterns dotted along the aisle added that extra romantic sparkle.

Bride Ruth's creative and artistic flair could be seen all around the venue, a beautiful hand drawn table plan and carefully handwritten signage, added a lovely personal touch. Ruth's Grandad had also made some giant, wooden light up letters of the couples initials which were a great focal point.

The scene was set for a fabulous day ahead and as guests arrived for the 2pm ceremony they were welcomed by wonderful live music from a musician who would provide an eclectic musical sound track for guests to dance and sing a long to throughout the whole day.

Ruth looked simply gorgeous when she arrived. Her stunning, traditional white gown, with a pretty sweet heart neckline and all over shimmer lace was perfectly accessorised with a flowing white veil and bridal bouquet of lavender tones and deep blue french hydrangeas. Her pretty team of bridesmaids, dressed in a powdery, cool grey complemented the silvery grey and white marble effect wedding cake, lovingly designed and made by Ruth's Grandma; Ruth's favourite colour!

After a relaxed ceremony and fabulous photos by Adam Wilkinson Photography Mr and Mrs Pickard and guests enjoyed a delicious wedding breakfast by in-house caterers Eat me - Drink Me. As guests made their way to be seated they 'oohed and ahhed' at childhood photographs of Ruth and Chris which provided cute table number settings. The children were kept well entertained with treasure chest colouring sets and a children's corner set up with jigsaws and fun activities to keep them busy!

As the party and dancing continued into the evening, guests were treated to a sweety station and wonderful street-food.

It was such a privilege to co-ordinate this wedding and work with such a lovely couple. A fantastic day was had by all.

By modefor, Jul 23 2018 09:51AM

Meeting new businesses online is always a treat and when they are wedding related businesses all the better!

Thanks to the power of Twitter I recently came across an exciting new online business called ‘How to I Do’ developed by lovely ladies Rachael and Clare.

The website is a curated collection of boutiques and independent wedding suppliers, bringing together the best of the North West of England to save couples time in planning a great wedding. There is also a blog that covers real weddings and provides insights and expert tips.

Describing the business, the ladies commented “How to I Do sees itself as having the feel of a beautiful magazine with useful editorial content to help couples to plan a wedding with confidence.”

The website and blog are targeted engaged couples looking for a stylish and individual big day in the North West. Explaining their core values and message, the ladies said: “Our core values and message are three-fold. Firstly, we want to shine a light on a wonderful region, and the smaller businesses within it who do excellent work. Secondly, we believe in multiculturalism, which is especially relevant in the North West. We aim to bring together the wedding market by having a range of multicultural wedding suppliers. Thirdly, we are inclusive and diverse and not solely bride-focused. We want grooms and same-sex couples to feel just as comfortable using our website, which is deliberately gender neutral. We want anyone to feel that How to I Do can help them to plan their wedding.”

How to I Do really has thought out of the box in wedding planning terms and caters for all styles of brides and grooms makes it a fabulous business in this huge industry of weddings. It purveys a sense of caring about its readers and clients and that exudes happiness, and we all want to run a happy business, right?

“Being part of an industry that celebrates love and happiness is, in itself, happiness-inducing!” said the ladies. “We see such beautiful work in the suppliers that we showcase that it is easy to feel inspired and positive by their passion and creativity. Through our blog about real weddings we hear the loveliest love stories too. It is a pleasure to be part of this business. We truly believe that How to I Do will assist time-poor couples in planning their wedding. After all, we know how long it can take to plan a brilliant Big Day - we have both done it! Now we just need to get our website and out there to help the next generations of engaged couples.”

As a new business, it’s always hard to get the ball rolling and get your name out there, but the clean, fresh, easy to navigate website is ticking all the right boxes. “We are growing every day however, we are still a very small fish at the moment and have a long way to go to truly reach and help the engaged community.”

But of course, there are not business but personal challenges too when starting a new business and the honesty of the ladies about these is truly refreshing and for me, a business that is honest and shows its true personality deserves to go far.

Rachael and Clare told me: “As starting any new business, it is easy to sometimes question if one is doing the right thing. We need to work extremely hard (which we do!) and also have a little patience and keep the faith! Fortunately, we can support each other should either of us have a minor ‘wobble.’ We need to remember that we only went live on 4th May 2018, and that Rome wasn’t built in a day! We are also learning to be even-better multi-taskers (and we were pretty good before!).”

I think you’ll agree that this new business rocks and really could be the way forward for time poor couples, wouldn’t you agree? But I’ll give the final words on why this business rocks to its leading ladies, Rachael and Clare: “How to I Do is born of a passion to support local businesses, promote diversity and multiculturalism within the wedding market and also save couples time in planning a great wedding. We believe that How to I Do has a contemporary edge compared with competitors in its style, easy-to-use website and its values. Unlike competitors we have a true collection of North West suppliers rather than simply a nod to the north!”

By modefor, Jul 16 2018 09:37AM

Back in cold and snowy March this year, I was invited to join the creative team at Sheffield Carnival as part of a group of local artists who would be designing and creating vibrant and larger than life costumes for the long anticipated re launch of Sheffield Carnival. The theme was 'The Rise of the Phoenix' depicting a rebirth of the carnival vibe on our streets, as it rises from the ashes after a 20 year break.

The aim was to bring carnival back to Sheffield big style!

I was thrilled to discover I would be working under the direction of talented designer Clary Salandy, the woman behind the spectacular Notting Hill costume parade and one of the UK's leading designers in Carnival arts.

After meeting Clary, I realised this was going to be a fantastic opportunity to gain valuable experience in this field. I really admired her passion for carnival, the arts, her high standards and expertise. She was very supportive and I had so much to learn from her. It was also a chance to finally put my qualifications in Design and Theatre to good use too. From then on, I embraced every second of Clary's invaluable teaching and carefully observed every aspect of her design process.

During the past few months I've learnt that carnival is so much more than feathers, bikinis and sequins. It's a theatrical, visual and dynamic art, an expression of culture and heritage, that means so much to many people. It brings people together and has a varied and diverse culture input whilst maintaining a sense of community. Not only that it's SO MUCH FUN!

The next three months felt like a chaotic whirlwind of workshops, designing, sketching, creating, painting and making. With only a couple of weeks to go I had the opportunity to visit Clary's Carnival Arts studio in London.

Her bustling three storey studio is full to bursting with a huge collection of larger than life colourful costumes, everywhere you look a feast for the eyes, no nook or cranny left empty, a room jam packed with dazzling colours, shapes, fabrics and dizzying designs. I felt like a kid in a sweet shop and I felt at home.

I spent the day with members of Clary's team and under Clary's guidance I created a prototype for my phoeonix dress design which was going to be worn by ten ladies in a section of the parade in Sheffield.

Back in Sheffield, it was hard to see how it was all going to come together in time, hundreds of costumes, hours and hours of hard work, a great deal of sweat, blood and tears but it did and in spectacular style thanks to the amazing hard working team at Sheffield Carnival.

The final costumes were simply out of this world. Seeing my designs come to life was one of the best feelings ever. Ten sassy women all strutting their stuff wearing my design, as we all danced together without a care in the world. The big parade saw hundreds of people dancing in the street, reflecting Sheffield's diverse range of international culture, all partying together as one big community with great multicultural spirit.

It seems that carnival is well and truly back on the streets of Sheffield and this pheonix bird has well and truly risen.

Have fun this summer peeps and make sure you find time to feel that carnival vibe, believe me it's addictive!

By modefor, Jul 9 2018 12:11PM

Some people spend over two years planning their wedding. It should be a happy time, making memories, personalising your special day and perfecting your plans. For some people though, planning a wedding can be stressful, getting caught up in the ‘should’ and ‘shouldn’t’ of wedding etiquette and unnecessary traditions.

Here at Mode For... we believe all of the planning stages of a wedding should be just as much fun as the day itself. We believe in stress free weddings and we are here to help you through the planning process.

We especially love DIY weddings! It means you really get to put your own stamp on a venue and make a wedding truly reﬂect your style and ideas. We believe, the best bit about a DIY wedding is the set-up before the big day. It’s so much fun to be a part of - seeing plans come together is pure magic! We have learnt a few things over the years and here are our top tips for making wedding set up just as much fun as the wedding day...

1. Play some music! - You need your favourite music on whilst your decorating your venue! It ﬁlls your team workers with enthusiasm and sets a great tone for the day.

2. Provide food & drinks - You will spend most of the day before the wedding setting-up and everyone will need lots of energy, make sure you feed your team of workers supplying them with endless cups of tea (or prosecco!).

3. Set out clear job roles - The key to DIY wedding set up is planning and team work. Spend some time allocating jobs before you start setting up, it will be so much quicker and less stressful if everyone knows what their job role is. Who’s responsible for setting out chairs? or hanging the bunting? You get the idea.

4. Have a deadline - The night before your wedding should be free of stress, make sure you set a time to ﬁnish. We think sitting back with a glass of wine by 6pm is perfect and we aim to help all our brides and grooms achieve this. It’s more important to enjoy your wedding day than stay up all night folding napkins!

5. Hire a Wedding Co-ordinator - Just because you can do everything yourself, doesn’t mean you should. Sometimes asking for help is ok and it means less stress and more fun. Talk to us today about how a wedding co-ordinator can help bring your DIY wedding to life !

By modefor, Jul 2 2018 08:34AM

On Saturday the 9th of June we celebrated the wedding of Amanda and Graham at our stunning industrial wedding venue, The Arches at Dean Clough.

It was a wonderfully relaxed day for a wonderfully relaxed and happy couple. The balmy summer sunshine flooded through the windows filling The Arches wih soft light and warmth.

However, it was groom Graham's creative flair and talent that shone through on the day with his carefully designed and handcrafted photobooth, an impressive supersized Mr and Mrs sign and a beautifully designed wooden heart centre piece adorned with flowers and fairy lights which proudly displayed heart warming photographs of the bride and groom's parents on their own wedding day.

A wooden archway, also hand made by the groom provided a romantic centre piece for the ceremony itself, candlelit lanterns and simple arrangements of carefully selected pink and purple blooms added softness to the industrial feel with place cards on the tables beautifully handwritten by one of the smallest family members adding that personal touch.

As family and friends eagerly awaited elegant and relaxed bride Amanda's arrival, her four bridesmaids couldn't contain their excitement with the youngest girls wearing pretty chiffon, tutu style dresses, accessorized with sparkly shoes and magical flower wands, a creative alternative to the traditional hand held flower posies.

The relaxed vibe continued after the ceremony with a scrumptious sit down meal from the in house caterers Eat me Drink me. The sound track for the day was a super chilled and laidback play list which set the tone perfectly as guests chatted, relaxed and enjoyed each others company before dancing the night away to some fabulous music from a live, top notch band.

What a privilege it was to work with such a relaxed, happy and talented couple at my first solo wedding with Mode For....thank you!